


Séance Weather

by dear_monday



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Halloween, Kid Fic, the addams family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2538740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all begins with the worst storm in fifty years. Or, in other words, how Frank meets the Ways and learns to embrace the dark side. An Addams Family AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Séance Weather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hulubululu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulubululu/gifts).



> Dedicated to Lou, the Gomez to my Morticia, who wouldn't let me give up on this story. Happy halloween, mon cher ♥ Many thanks to [thatonedeadgirl](http://thatonedeadgirl.tumblr.com) and [deanghostchester](http://deanghostchester.tumblr.com) for cheerleading, because god only knows I needed it, and to the ever-majestic [akamine_chan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/akamine_chan) for a stellar lightning-speed beta.

It starts with the worst storm in fifty years. There are snare-drum rolls of thunder loud enough to crack the sky and great forks and flashes of magnesium-bright lightning, and the sort of rain you could drown in. Frank sits in his little plastic chair by the window with his chin in his hands, and imagines it falling on rooftops and sidewalks and streetlights, pictures it running into storm drains and dripping off leaves onto the bedraggled birds huddled underneath them. The sky is bruise-coloured, far too dark for two o'clock in the afternoon.

 

And then the lights go out.

 

Miss Bird sighs, and makes everyone promise to stay where they are before disappearing into the dark hallway, the clicking of her heels on the scuffed linoleum fading with every step. Frank kicks his feet under his desk, and grins to himself in the darkness. His birthday was last week, but this is like getting a second chance at Halloween. Some of the other kids are edging towards each other, gravitating towards the middle of the small classroom like leaves raked up into a pile. Frank can see their eyes flickering, wide and fearful. He doesn't get it. He _likes_ the way the darkness turns familiar things into strange, ominous shadows. If he tilts his head just right, the bookshelf in the corner looks like a closet with the door open just a crack. It gives him the shivers. The good kind.

 

Miss Bird comes back a little while later with a handful of other teachers and their classes in tow. They get another stern warning about not leaving the room, and then the teachers leave to start calling all the parents. Frank positively beams at that; an extra day of Halloween _and_ an afternoon off school? He can hardly believe his luck.

 

He counts to twenty in his head before he slips out of the classroom, because of course he's going to try to sneak out. He'd be letting himself down if he didn't. He's almost sure that window in the bathroom he's still small enough to fit through will be locked, but he has to try.

 

It _is_ locked. Which sucks, in Frank's opinion. It's like the world is conspiring to make sure he never has any fun, but it takes him all of two minutes to get over the disappointment. When he sneaks back into the classroom, undetected, the other kids have rearranged themselves into a ragged, uneven circle and Frank knows without having to ask that they're telling ghost stories – and, seriously, is this the day that just keeps on giving or what? He wriggles and elbows his way into a narrow space between someone's grubby chucks and someone else's scraped knees, and looks around. There's a boy he doesn't know, hair too dark to be natural and skin too pale to be healthy, speaking in a low voice full of sharp things and bright eyes. Every other kid in the room is watching him, utterly bewitched. At first, Frank can't even understand the words, but there's something about the rhythm and the pulse of the story pulling him in like a whirlpool. There's another boy just behind the one speaking, he realises belatedly, hovering there like a shadow. This one's pale too, weirdly blank-faced, mousy hair falling over his eyes.

 

"And _then_ ," says the dark-haired kid, dropping his voice even further. The entire circle leans in, terrified of hearing what happens next and equally terrified of missing a single word. Frank shuffles forwards, rapt, because this is someone else who _gets_ it, who tells real ghost stories, who understands that it's fun to be scared sometimes."They went to find her body. It was raining, just like today, and all the people who lived here then – your grandparents – were fast asleep, locked up in the houses you live in now. But they went anyway, through the storm, through the rain and the kind of thunder that rattles your bones. She was buried in the graveyard behind the church, the old one on the hill, and they found her headstone and they started digging. And there was grave dirt everywhere, and they could hardly see, but they kept digging and digging and digging. It took them hours and they were slipping and sliding in the mud, but they finally got to her coffin, and they drag it out. It burnt their hands, and it hissed every time a rain drop fell on it."

 

Frank is so completely, hopelessly sold. On this boy, his hypnotic voice, his mysterious grave-robbers.

 

"And the wood was rotten, and they managed to break the lid open. But the only thing inside--" there is a palpable collective intake of breath "--is a note. They all grab for it before the rain makes it too hard to read, but all it says is, _I've only just begun_."

 

There are several actual shrieks from the boy's captive audience, and Frank regrets even more that he wasn't around to hear the beginning. He _loves_ good ghost stories. He wants to ask the kid where he heard this one or whether he just made it up, whether he's got any more, but Miss Bird chooses that moment to reappear in the doorway.

 

"Alright, everyone," she says. She looks tired as she smoothes her pale yellow blouse down and runs a hand through her pale blonde curls. "Your parents are on their way, so we're all going to go out to the lobby and wait for them, okay? No running!" she adds slightly desperately, as the stampede for the door begins. Frank doesn't make any effort to get out first - why would he? It doesn't actually make any difference. He waits for Miss Bird to leave, then turns back one last time.

 

The boy who was telling the story is still here, as is the other kid still hovering just behind him. The dark-haired one raises an eyebrow at Frank. It's a weird expression that's somehow too old for his face, like he learned it from someone else.

 

Frank opens his mouth to say something. He doesn't know what. _You're really good at ghost stories_ , maybe, or _I haven't seen you around before_ , or even _Take me with you_ , but what comes out is, "Is there really another graveyard behind the old church?"

 

The kid's smile is slow and sly with altogether too many teeth in it. "Sure," he says. "Want to see?"

 

Frank hesitates, because he does, he _does_ , but - his mom won't be more than ten minutes, which isn't even enough time to walk over there, let alone get back in time. It's not _fair_. The storyteller's eyes are bright, and even the quiet boy's mouth is twisted sideways in a half-smirk.

 

And then the dark-haired boy plays his ace, dropping the words into the thick silence, slow and sure and nasty enough to make Frank's skin crawl in the most delicious way. "I _double dare_ you. Unless you're _scared?_ " 

 

 

*

 

 

"This is _awesome_ ," Frank breathes. His eyes are huge as he stares around him. The driving rain and shrieking wind are still going strong, but there really _is_ a graveyard, complete with weathered, moss-covered headstones and dark, foreboding trees crowded close around the wrought iron fence, their roots rippling out under the overgrown grass. He crouches down to take a better look at the nearest stone, heedless of the way his sneakers slide into the thick mud under his feet. He mouths the words to himself as he struggles to read the inscription.

 

"Seventeen ninety-three," he says. "That's. That's." Frank is ten years old. He can't even _begin_ to get his head around that kind of time. He turns back to look at the two strange little darkling children he followed here – Gerard and Mikey, he now knows, but he practically had to pry that out of them with a crowbar ("It's like pulling teeth," he'd muttered, which is something his mom sometimes says about buying him clothes, but Gerard had let out winsome little sigh and his eyes had turned all dreamy). "Guys? Look at this," Frank says. They're watching him with identical expressions, somewhere between nonplussed and put-out.

 

"This is a _graveyard_ ," says Gerard slowly, like he thinks Frank is terminally stupid. "There are dead people under your feet right now. Think about their skeletons, all rotting and slimy, with bits of skin and hair still clinging on..."

 

Frank thinks about it. "Ew," he says, gleefully, his nose wrinkling and his mouth stretching into a wide grin.

 

" _Rotting_ ," Mikey repeats, like he thinks Frank didn't hear Gerard the first time.

 

"Gross," says Frank happily, as he wipes rain out of his eyes and squelches off through the mud to investigate an interesting-looking statue. It seems to have more limbs than it really ought to.

 

"Aren't you... scared?" asks Gerard. Frank turns to look at him again, puzzled.

 

"Well, yeah. It's a _graveyard_. But, like, the good scared. Like, scary-movie-scared, not forgot-your-homework-scared." Frank beams at him.

 

"Oh," says Gerard. His mouth works silently for a long moment, and Frank realises too late that this is the part where Gerard calls him a freak and never, ever speaks to him again. He sighs inwardly. It was fun, while it lasted.

 

But then, Gerard scuffs his boot awkwardly against the muddy ground, and says, "Want to come back to our house? I think Ma made cookies."

 

 

*

 

 

"Is your house haunted?" asks Frank, as they make their way up the long driveway towards it. House, he thinks, is something of an understatement. It sits on the top of the hill, a little way back from the rest of the town, haughty and dark and forbidding. He's seen it before, always from a distance, and he'd thought it was deserted. Frank has never heard anyone talk about the place, and no one seems to know who - if anyone - lives there.

 

It's the coolest house Frank has ever seen. It has _turrets_ , which he covets immediately. His house doesn't have turrets. Or a circular tower room, or an overgrown, thorny sprawl of a front yard, or wrought-iron fencing warped with age and twice as tall as he is.

 

He's going to be really, _really_ disappointed if Gerard and Mikey's house isn't haunted. Gerard turns back to look at him pityingly.

 

" _Obviously_ ," Gerard says. "Isn't yours?"

 

"No," says Frank sadly. "Not even a little bit." They've never had so much as a door that opens or closes by itself, let alone phantom shadows on the walls, and if anything is ever where it shouldn't be then Frank will know about it because it's invariably his fault. He's spent hours and hours on gloomy afternoons like this one searching from the basement to the rafters for some sign of the supernatural, or at the very least some ominous evidence of a gruesome past, but by now he's pretty much accepted that the house is exactly what it seems, nothing more and nothing less: a house. It's a real disappointment.

 

"Really?" asks Mikey, as he dodges a low-hanging branch that nearly takes Frank's eye out and drenches him even more thoroughly with accumulated rain in the process. "Not even a poltergeist or anything? Gee, remember that year when we had three of them in the attic and uncle Montgomery's ghost in that bedroom and, and--"

 

"Cousin Ermintrude in the drawing room," finishes Gerard, stepping over something that Frank thinks might be a bear trap without even looking down. "That was annoying. Just because she was only eight when she died didn't mean she had to take it out on me. It wasn't _my_ fault she tried to curse me for experimenting on her stupid toad," he says petulantly, then rather steps on his own point by adding, "Anyway, it wouldn't leave me alone. It kept getting slime all over my drawings." He's glowering, and Frank does his best to feel menaced. It's not like Gerard seems particularly upset or anything, but Frank's not sure whether or not it's okay to tell someone that being haunted by their dead relatives sounds kind of awesome.

 

"Anyway," says Gerard casually, as he lifts the heavy-looking brass door-knocker (shaped like a wolf's head, Frank is almost sure) and releases it, letting it drop back against the imposing, ominously stained front door with a bang so loud Frank starts a little. The door creaks open apparently of its own accord with a noise like... well, Frank can't help thinking, a noise like a dying toad. "Come in, Frank."

 

It doesn't cross Frank's mind for so much as a moment that he should leave now.

 

The hall he follows Gerard and Mikey into is cavernous and dark, with cracked flagstones on the floor and peeling, damp-stained damask paper on the walls. There's a grandfather clock in one corner and a broad staircase at the far end, and more doors than Frank can count in the weak light filtering through the grimy windows. Every available surface is piled high with _stuff_ ; ancient-looking books left open on pages with strange diagrams on them, empty bottles of all shapes and sizes, bunches of dried herbs, clocks with their metallic innards spilling out, oddly-shaped devices and gadgets that Frank couldn't begin to guess at the names or functions of, tattered pieces of clothing and things made of leather and metal from which Frank instinctively averts his eyes. He bends down to ease his muddy shoes off, trying not to stare. He thinks he might be in love.

 

"Wait, wait, what are you doing? What are you, _stupid?_ "

 

Frank looks up, puzzled, his cheeks burning. "I'm. Taking my shoes off?" he hazards. "I don't wanna get mud everywhere."

 

Gerard shrugs. "Fine. Just so long as you're not too attached to your toes."

 

Frank puts his shoe back on.

 

"Séance weather," Mikey explains, as Gerard leads them towards a pockmarked door with a slightly charred patch on one side. "Ma always says you have to be extra careful, days like this."

 

 

*

 

 

His mom almost cries with relief when he eventually comes home two hours late, minus one of his sneakers and absolutely covered in mud.

 

"Where _were_ you?" she demands, her voice shaking with fury. "I called the school, I called everyone I could think of, but no one even saw you. Do you know how worried I was? I was about to call the police!" There are two splashes of pink in her cheeks, and she looks down at him and folds her arms sternly as if to say, _Well?_

 

Sensing danger, Frank widens his eyes innocently. "I was with some friends," he says. He doesn't think calling the Ways his friends is stretching the truth too much. He certainly wants to be _their_ friend, he just hopes they feel the same way about him. "We... lost track of time."

 

His mom looks both taken aback and deeply suspicious. "Friends?" she says cautiously. "Honey, they are... your friends, right?"

 

Frank bristles. Okay, yes, for a brief period in second grade he'd thought Bobby Gill was his friend until it had turned out to be an elaborate practical joke. He grimaces involuntarily. Occasionally, he thinks he can still taste that tadpole.

 

"That was _one time_ ," Frank says. "Anyway, they're... different. They're nice."

 

"Uh huh," says his mom, still looking thoroughly dubious. "What are their names? Where do they live?"

 

"They're called Gerard and Mikey," Frank says. He tries not to roll his eyes. He knows what she's getting at, but he's not a kid anymore. The Ways aren't imaginary friends. At least, he hopes they're not. That would be disappointing. "They live out near the old church."

 

His mom sighs, exasperated but fond, and Frank doesn't think she's really too angry. She ruffles his hair and gives him a little smile, and Frank beams back. And as she _tsks_ and fusses and chivvies him upstairs into a hot bath, he looks out of the window at the rain, and a delicious shiver ripples through him. Séance weather, he thinks, and he smiles.

 

 

*

 

 

To Frank's crushing disappointment, the power is back on and school is reinstated the next day. He daydreams his way through math, and Miss Bird sighs like she's disappointed when she catches Frank doodling an ambitious but lopsided rotting skeleton on the back of his worksheet instead of concentrating on his multiplication questions. Frank doesn't care. He knows it's not that good, but he's sort of proud of it. He wants to show it to Gerard and Mikey; he's sure they'd appreciate it. When the bell rings for recess, he's out of the room like a shot.

 

When Frank finally finds them in a secluded corner of the playground, the brothers Way seem to be playing some sort of clapping game, which is bizarre in and of itself, until Frank gets close enough to hear them chanting, "Mary-Ann Cotton, she's dead and she's rotten." Somehow, this makes much more sense. He shows them his picture of a skeleton, which is received even better than he expected. It feels... weird. No one's ever told him he's cool for drawing dead things before, which is why he stopped after the incident where his mom was on the point of sending him to a shrink when he drew the dead bird he found in their back yard last fall.

 

"This is _amazing_ ," says Gerard wonderingly, running his finger down the wonky line of the skeleton's spine. He looks up at Frank. "Can I keep it?"

 

The math sheet was supposed to be Frank's homework. Frank doesn't even stop to think about it. "Sure," he says. He's going to be in so much trouble, but Gerard is grinning and folding the paper carefully into thirds and tucking it into the pocket of his blazer and Frank thinks it'll be worth it.

 

His happiness lasts all the way up to the sudden shock of pain in his shoulder. He whirls round. There's a stone at his feet, just a small one, gray-brown with mud still clinging to it, and Frank catches Jamie O'Donnell looking away a split second too late. He's surrounded by his friends, and they're all laughing. Frank reaches round to rub at his hurt shoulder, bewildered. He knew Jamie (and, by extension, his gang) didn't like him all that much, but throwing stones? That's new.

 

" _Hey_ ," he says, taking a step towards them, his hands balling into fists, but Mikey grabs his arm.

 

"Don't," Mikey says.

 

"But – what? Why not?" Frank doesn't get it. You don't just throw stones at people for no reason. He's going to find out what that was for, and then he's going to find a stone of his own. A really big one. After the incident of Bobby Gill and the unfortunate tadpole, Frank learned very quickly that it's best to stamp out any stone-throwing or name-calling quickly or everyone thinks they can get away with it.

 

Gerard shrugs nonchalantly. "They don't like us," he says. "They _really_ don't like us. And you're talking to us." He looks like he's waiting for something. Frank blinks at him, nonplussed.

 

"You can go and play kickball with them," Gerard explains helpfully, "Or you can help us plot their deaths." He smiles, like he wouldn't _mind_ if Frank wanted to play kickball, but it doesn't look right. Frank thinks that maybe Gerard would mind, just a little bit.

 

Frank stays. Debating decapitation versus dismemberment with the Ways is _much_ more fun than pretending to enjoy kickball anyway.

 

 

*

 

 

Over the course of the next week, it dawns slowly on Frank that he's never really had friends before. Not friends like the Ways, at least, which amounts to more or less the same thing. Frank lets them share his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the cookies his mom puts in his lunchbox, and, in exchange, they give him morsels of their own portions of leftovers from fancy dishes with names Frank can't pronounce.

 

"Roulade de grenouille," Gerard repeats, slowly.

 

"Roo-lard de gronwee?" Frank tries, and Gerard snorts.

 

"Sort of," he says, while Mikey sniggers into his cup. The cup, Frank discovered, does not contain juice like he originally thought. It's actually something gross that tastes like headaches and is apparently called "claret."

 

"Oh, hey," Frank says, perking up as he remembers something. "I found, like, a giant snail earlier, over there. Let me go get it." He trots over to where he'd spotted the snail - giant might be a slight exaggeration, it's maybe half the size of his small fist - and carefully picks it off the leaf where it's currently minding its own business. To Frank's mind, it has a long-suffering look, inasmuch as snails have expressions. There's definitely a weary droop to its eye stalks.

 

A shriek splits the air behind him and he jumps guiltily, looking over his shoulder to see a pigtailed girl recoiling in horror from his snail.

 

"You're not s'posed to play with bugs," she says accusingly. "I'm telling on you."

 

"He's not a _bug_ ," Frank protests, affronted. "Look--"

 

But the girl has already scuttled off to find a teacher. If there's one thing Frank can't stand, it's people who spoil other people's fun. It just doesn't seem fair. He sighs, and makes his way back over to Gerard and Mikey, who are looking on with interest.

 

"It's not a very _giant_ giant snail," Mikey says. He regards it impassively and it looks back at him equally coolly, flicking one eye stalk with apparent disdain.

 

"It's kind of giant," Gerard says fairly. He holds his hand out and Frank places the snail in his palm. "It might be a baby giant snail. We should call him Atlas."

 

"Like the book with the maps?" Frank pulls a leaf off a nearby privet bush and offers it to Atlas, who starts to crawl towards it.

 

"Like the Greek giant," Mikey says. "The one who held up the sky."

 

At that moment, an appalled Mr. Hudgens materialises from nowhere and sternly tells them to put Atlas back where they found him. Frank trails off forlornly to return his new friend to the patch of earth where he found him while Mr. Hudgens tells Gerard sternly that he's very disappointed in him and that he, as the eldest of the three of them, ought to know better. Frank returns just in time to see Gerard imitating Mr. Hudgens' disapproving face with lethal accuracy behind his retreating back, and Frank decides it was totally worth it.

 

That night, tucked up in his bed, Frank dreams about snails the size of houses, balancing atop one of the humongous shells with Gerard and Mikey as they hold on tightly to each other and wave at the little matchstick people down below, taking it in turns to hold the sky aloft.

 

It's a nice dream, and Frank rolls over with a smile on his face.

 

 

*

 

 

The following Monday, Frank looks for the Ways in the playground, but they're nowhere to be seen. Perhaps, he thinks, as he sits and eats his sandwiches on his own, they've gone exploring without him. He wonders if he always got so many nasty looks from the other kids, or if he's just noticing them more than usual today. At least no one is throwing stones at him.

 

He saves a bite of his cookie in case they come back, but by the time the bell rings, it's still sitting there uneaten in his lunchbox.

 

Tuesday comes and goes, then Wednesday, and there's still no sign of them. Frank takes to wandering aimlessly about the playground, trying not to look lonely. He's fine, really. He must be fine, because he was fine before he met them, so there's no reason why he shouldn't be fine now. Still, though, he thinks, as he crouches down to examine an impressive swathe of cobwebs on the underside of a bench, it isn't the same, somehow. He just knows Gerard would have some story about a man-eating spider, which would be much better and scarier and a hundred times more real than anything Frank could conjure up. Gerard knows all the best stories.

 

By the end of the day, Frank has made his decision. He trots straight home, dumps his school bag in the hall, and, when his mom calls out to him from the kitchen, he tells her he's going to visit the Ways.

 

" _Wait_ , Frank," she says, sticking her head around the door and frowning. "Are you going with anyone? Are you staying for dinner? What time are you coming back?"

 

Frank considers. "Maybe," he says, and books it out into the front yard before she has time to argue. He knows there'll be hell to pay for that one later, but it'll be hours before he has to worry about that.

 

He marches purposefully along the narrow, quiet streets to where the Way house stands a little apart from the others. There's a chilly bite of fall in the air, blazing red leaves cut out of a dull, iron-gray sky. It looks like rain. Frank crosses his fingers for another thunderstorm. He's started to wonder if storms are lucky, and even if they aren't, storms inevitably lead to puddles. Puddles are excellent. Séance weather, sighs Mikey's voice dreamily in his head, and Frank glances up one more time and before scuttling off on his way.

 

This time, he hops nimbly across the front yard, avoiding the rusty bear trap and the suspicious stain on the doorstep. He lifts the heavy knocker and lets it drop back down with an ominous, booming thud. Overhead, the clouds crowd closer, as if to get a better view.

 

For a long moment, nothing happens. Frank tries to be patient, he really does, but patience is a concept he hasn't quite mastered yet. He fidgets, bouncing up on his toes and scuffing his shoes and scratching his ear. Maybe he should knock again, just in case they didn't hear. He reaches for the knocker again, but before he can lay a finger on it, the door creaks suspiciously open and a narrow sliver of Mikey's face appears in the gap.

 

"Oh," he says. "Frank. It's, uh..." his face disappears for a moment, then shifts uneasily back into view. "Kind of a bad time. Gerard's... sick."

 

Frank hears the creak of ancient hinges. "What's wrong with Gerard?" he demands, panicked, wedging his foot in the door so Mikey can't close it in his face. "Is he okay?" Frank can't imagine Gerard being sick. Getting sick is something that happens to ordinary people, people like Frank. Not people like Gerard, storybook characters brought to life.

 

"Just - stuff," says Mikey evasively. "Family stuff."

 

There follows a rather awkward silence. Mikey seems to be expecting him to leave, but Frank doesn't remove his foot from the door. His mother is fond of saying that he's like a dog with a bone when he's got his teeth into something. He stands and waits. It feels like a tug of war.

 

"I guess you'd better come in," says Mikey, after what feels like an age has passed, and the door groans as Mikey pushes it open. Frank scurries through quickly, not giving Mikey the chance to change his mind.

 

By the time the door has thudded closed again behind them, Mikey is already leading Frank up the stairs. He points out the trick ones that would trap Frank's feet, stepping deftly over them with practiced ease. Frank scrambles up after him, then follows him down a narrow hallway lined with imposing portraits whose eyes seem to follow them all the way up another flight of stairs, this one tightly curled into a spiral. At the top is a door, the wallpaper around it stained and scorched. There's a sign on the door, angular, untidy handwriting on a piece of cardboard. Frank leans closer to read it.

 

_Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again._

 

Yup, this is Gerard's room. Frank swallows and raises his hand to knock, but Mikey sighs, pushes it open and shoves Frank through. The door swings closed again behind him with an air of finality, and Frank is alone with Gerard.

 

The room is dark, the thick curtains drawn over the window, no lights on. The gloom is thick, almost liquid, pooling in the corners and draped over the walls in shadowy strands. As Frank's eyes adjust, he's able to make out the outline of a hulking four-poster bed in the corner. He pads over to it, almost tripping on the edge of some kind of rug.

 

"Hi, Gerard," he says. After a moment's thought, he sits himself down on the floor and crosses his legs. A faint noise emanates from the vague, lumpy shape in the bed.

 

"Frank?" Gerard says. His voice is muffled like he's speaking into a pillow and scratched and wobbly like he's been crying. Frank can't imagine Gerard crying. "Wh'are you doing here?"

 

"You weren't in school," Frank says. "I came to see you."

 

"Really?"

 

It takes Frank several seconds to realise that this is not the rhetorical sort of _really_. "Um," he says. "Yes." It seems odd that Gerard would ask; Frank thinks it seems perfectly sensible. Silence falls. Frank sits quietly, and enjoys the darkness. He likes the dark. Gerard's room smells sort of funny, though, almost stale, like he's had the windows shut for too long. He thinks about Gerard spending days on end in here, shut away in this dark, stuffy room, and bites his lip.

 

"Mikey said you were sick," says Frank, and Gerard makes a funny little hiccupping noise.

 

"Yeah. Sick," he says, and goes quiet again.

 

"School's no fun without you," Frank says quietly. "I found this awesome spiderweb under the bench in the playground yesterday. No one else thought it was cool. Someone kicked a hole in it."

 

Gerard mumbles something in reply and, encouraged, Frank chatters away about everything that's happened in the last few days. Once or twice, he's almost sure he manages to drag a huff of laughter out of Gerard. Gerard doesn't seem to feel like talking, but that's okay. Frank can talk for both of them. It's actually sort of nice, just sitting there in the dark. Frank can hear the little uneven, snuffly sounds of Gerard's breathing.  He's desperately curious to find out just what's been keeping Gerard out of school, but he has a feeling that now isn't the time. Instead, he looks around, trying to imagine what the room would look like in the light.

 

"Hey, can I open the window?" he asks, getting up and feeling his way towards the thin thread of daylight between the heavy drapes.

 

"Um," Gerard says. It isn't a _no_ , so Frank figures it must be okay. He carefully pulls the drapes away, and the chilly, colourless light floods in. On the bed, Gerard whimpers pitifully. Frank frowns and sticks his tongue out as he wrestles with the stiff latch on the window sill. The windows are made of the kind of old-fashioned diamond-shaped panes of slightly uneven glass that warp the view outside, and Frank almost gets distracted by the way the gnarled oak tree in the backyard looks like it's reaching up towards him. Eventually, the latch yields, and Frank heaves the window open and turns away to look around the room. The draft is cold, but it smells clean, like fresh rain.

 

"Fraaaaaank," Gerard groans, curling in on himself like a bug.

 

Frank barely even hears him. Gerard's room is _perfect_. The drapes are velvet, the same deep, rich colour as the claret in Mikey's cup. The wallpaper is torn and stained in places, but Frank can still see the elaborate, flowery patterns on it. There's a spidery chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and a fishtank in the corner. Like everything else in the room - the four-poster bed, the bookshelf, the little vanity under the window - the tank looks like an antique, but Frank's more preoccupied by the octopus sprawled desultorily on the gravel at the bottom. He pads over to it and peers in, delighted. He's never met anyone else with a pet octopus. The idea of having an octopus for a pet hadn't even _occurred_ to him before today. Frank's pretty sure Gerard is the single most awesome person ever to have existed.

 

"What's his name?" he asks, not quite able to tear his eyes away from the octopus to look around.

 

"Cthulhu," says Gerard indistinctly from the bed.

 

"Cool," says Frank. He tries to imagine how you'd spell that, and gives up after C. He gazes through the glass, absolutely fascinated.

 

"Here."

 

Frank starts. He hadn't heard Gerard get up, but he's suddenly right behind Frank. He steps forward and carefully opens the tank's hinged lid, propping it open with what looks an awful lot like a medieval thumbscrew. "He doesn't bite. Put your hand in."

 

Frank is completely entranced by the lazy undulation of Cthulhu's tentacles in the greenish water, and he doesn't even think before dipping his fingers in. Cthulhu extends a single tentacle magnanimously and wraps it around two of Frank's fingers, like he's shaking hands. He feels cool and slightly slimy to the touch, unlike anything Frank's ever felt before, but lithe and strong.

 

"He likes you," says Gerard. "Look, he's not even trying to pull your fingernails out."

 

Frank looks up at Gerard for the first time. He does look sick, his hair a tangled mess of grease, his eyes red-rimmed, his clothes rumpled and his skin the same translucent white as fine china.

 

But he's smiling.

 

Well. It's almost a smile. One corner of his crooked mouth has quirked up, and he's watching Frank giggle as Cthulhu tickles the palm of his hand.

 

"You'll come back to school when you're better, right?" Frank blurts, taking himself by surprise. Gerard _has_ to come back, him and Mikey too. He doesn't want to lose the only real friends he's ever had. School really isn't any fun without them.

 

"Yeah," Gerard says. He bites his lip, the smile disappearing. "I guess."

 

"Good," says Frank, relieved, and Gerard snorts.

 

"You really miss us that much?"

 

"Yes," Frank says, refusing to feel embarrassed. He looks up at Gerard, and hears his mother sighing, _Like a little dog with a bone_ again.

 

"Oh." Gerard looks rather taken aback. He blinks. "Uh. Thanks."

 

"S'fine. So are you... feeling better?" Frank asks tentatively, and Gerard treats him to another smile.

 

"A bit," he says. "You're like my cough drops or something."

 

Frank isn't sure how he feels about being compared to cough drops, but he thinks it's a good thing. In fact, he's almost sure Gerard means that he, Frank, made him feel better. Frank feels pleasantly warm.

 

"I'm not crazy," Gerard says abruptly. "Just... so you know."

 

Frank frowns, puzzled by the non-sequitur. "I know," he said. "I don't think you're crazy."

 

"Okay. Good." Gerard stares fixedly into Cthulhu's tank. Frank thinks he's beginning to understand. Gerard wasn't sick, or at least not with anything so mundane as a cold. Frank remembers his mom sitting him down last winter and telling him that his aunt Monica had to go away for a while to a special hospital because her brain wasn't well. Frank didn't understand why it had to be such a big deal; surely it's no different to when other parts of people like their lungs or their stomachs get sick. Gerard isn't crazy, Frank thinks, looking at his pale face, pillow creases still pressed into his cheek, his puffy eyes and his choked, hoarse voice. He's just... sad.

 

Frank darts forward and throws his arms around Gerard. He smells gross, but he's warm, and after a long moment of hesitation, he cautiously wraps his arms around Frank and hugs him back.

 

 

*

 

 

The next day, both Ways are back in school. Gerard looks better, like he's had a square meal and a thorough wash since Frank last saw him, and even Mikey doesn't look quite so drawn and worried. Frank did get a stern lecture from his mom when he got home, but it's okay. It was totally worth it.

 

Unfortunately, that afternoon, his good mood is extinguished in one fell swoop by Miss Bird's announcement another parent-teacher conference is looming. Frank hates parent-teacher conferences. He tries to do his best at school, he really does - even when the work is boring and makes his head hurt. But it's always 'So much potential,' and 'Could do better,' and 'Must learn to concentrate.' What he really hates is his mom's disappointed face. It just makes him feel guilty.

 

His unhappiness must be obvious. When he encounters the Ways in the playground on his way home, Gerard takes one look at him and says, "You look like the corpse at a funeral. What happened?"

 

"Parent-teacher conference," says Frank miserably, scuffing his foot in the dirt. "It's next week."

 

"Ooh," Gerard says, looking positively gleeful, his eyes sparkling. "That'll be fun."

 

And, just like that, Frank is positively looking forward to it.

 

 

*

 

 

Frank has never actively looked forward to a parent-teacher conference before, and this one doesn't disappoint. Gerard is wearing an honest-to-god waistcoat, and he even lets Frank look at his pocket watch, which is pretty much the highlight of Frank's week. Upon seeing his bow tie, Miss Harries asks him what the occasion is, to which he blankly replies, "Thursday." Mikey doesn't say a word to any of his teachers, opting instead for his most unnerving silent stare, and Gerard answers every question put to him with a baffling but ominous non sequitur like, "Did you know you can drown a man in an inch of water?"

 

The best part of all is that Mrs. Way looks _proud_. Frank is in awe.

 

Frank's own conversation with Miss Bird is rather less satisfactory. Or, rather, his mom's, as she listens and nods and makes all the right noises while Frank fidgets and kicks his feet in his little plastic chair.

 

"He's a very bright boy," Miss Bird says diplomatically, re-shuffling the sheaf of notes on the table in front of her. "He just needs to make a bit more of an effort. Do you think that's fair, Frank?"

 

Frank is about to say that no, it isn't even slightly fair because it's very difficult to concentrate on math when there are ghost stories to be told and graveyards to be explored, then thinks better of it. "I guess," he mumbles, studiously avoiding Miss Bird's eyes. He's heard all of this before, most of it more than once. He wonders idly when she's going to bust out the p-word. It can't be far off now, it usually crops up sooner or later.

 

"I mean," Miss Bird continues, directing the full force of her sugary, pastel-clad earnestness at Frank's mom again. "His grades are nothing to worry about, it's just that he could do so much better. The potential is there."

 

And there it is, the dreaded p-word. Frank hates it. He tries his best at school, he really does, but somehow it's never good enough. He doesn't even want good grades anyway. In his brief experience, all you get for being smart is extra work. He'd much rather be with Gerard and Mikey, hunting for toads in the little pond in the corner of the playground. It isn't a big pond, and so far they haven't found so much as a single measly goldfish - mostly because the pond is about as deep as a frying pan. Really, it's more glorified puddle than pond, but Gerard is sure there must be toads in there. Toads, he says, live in ponds, and it hasn't even crossed Frank's mind to question him.

 

"Frank?"

 

Frank snaps abruptly out of his reverie about an intrepid band of toad hunters armed with rubber waders and enormous nets as they tackle a pond as big as an ocean. "What?"

 

"Head in the clouds, as usual," Frank's mom sighs. "Come on, let's not waste any more of Miss Bird's time." He can tell by the way her lips are pressed together that she isn't happy, and he bites his own lip and trails out in her wake. He waves over his shoulder to the Ways as they go, and Gerard makes a sympathetic face and mimes tightening a noose around his neck.

 

They barely speak in the car on the way home. Frank hates to see his mom look so drained and disappointed. She tries not to let it show, but he knows things have been hard for her since Frank's dad left. She works really hard, and Frank figures that if she can do it, so can he. He tells her as much later that evening, when she kisses him goodnight, and her smile is small and soft and kind of sad and her eyes get very bright.

 

"Just do your best, munchkin," she says, pulling him in for a hug. "You'll make me proud. I'm always going to love you, no matter what."

 

" _Mom_ ," he whines, squirming to get away, and she laughs and lets him go.

 

"Bedtime," she says, sniffing and wiping her eyes quickly with the back of her hand. She smiles fondly as she leaves, closing the door behind her, and he promises himself that he'll try harder.

 

 

*

 

 

Unfortunately, Frank's resolution to be better at school doesn't last long. In his defence, it wasn't his fault. It was Jamie O'Donnell again, talking loudly about "the freak" and "it" and pretending not to hear Gerard when he told them to clear off. Frank bit his tongue and tried not to yell back, but it didn't help. Gerard isn't an _it_ , he thinks, as he slouches angrily down the hallway towards the principal's office, oozing righteous indignation from every pore. Gerard is a _person_. A fascinating, beautiful, complicated, disastrous person, with a heart as big as the moon.

 

To his great surprise, Mrs Way is there too, draped over one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. She smiles at him, and extends her hand regally for Frank to shake. Frank endeavours to look like the sort of boy who would never in a million years even _consider_ sitting on someone and grinding their face into the mud.

 

"Frank," she says. "How lovely. How are you?"

 

"I'm good, Mrs Way," he says, sitting down next to her and trying not to step on her long dress where it's pooled on the scuffed linoleum tiles around her feet. "How are you?"

 

"Just fine, darling, just fine. Thank you for asking. I got a note from Gerard's teacher inviting me to come in to discuss his _disturbingly vivid imagination_. Isn't that wonderful?" She positively _beams_.

 

"Awesome." Frank's grinning too. He'd be willing to bet it was that creative writing assignment that did it. What did they expect, really, giving Gerard a title like 'It was a dark and stormy night'?

 

"Incidentally, speaking of my boys, I wanted to thank you for coming around to see Gerard the other day," she says, fixing Frank with a slightly more serious look. "You got him out of bed. Not just anyone can do that."

 

"Oh." Frank blinks, surprised. To him, it doesn't seem like something she should be thanking him for. It was something he wanted to do, something he did because he was worried about his friend. He hasn't had many friends, but he's pretty sure that's what friends are supposed to do. "It wasn't a big deal or anything," he says. "I just wanted him to feel better." He scuffs his feet against the floor.

 

"Still," she says, her face softening. She sighs. "It was hard on the poor boy, having to bury his grandmother for the third time." She shakes her head, evidently pulling herself together. "Anyway, enough of that. What are you in for?" she asks, leaning in conspiratorially and flashing that crooked little smirk that Frank's seen a hundred times on her sons. It's not like it would be if it were any other grown-up asking the same question, so he doesn't mind telling her. Besides, he's pretty sure Mrs Way can read minds, so it's not as if there'd be any point in lying.

 

"Fighting," he says, and then, because he might as well tell her everything, "Again."

 

"Oh, you'll be fine," she says breezily. "Here, eat this. It'll help." She hands him something small, wrapped in gold foil, and winks.

 

"Thank you?" he says, a little uncertainly. He unwraps it, and no sooner has he popped the small, jet-black piece of candy into his mouth than Mr. Shaw sticks his head out of his office and calls Frank in. Frank swallows hastily, heaves up from his chair and drags himself towards the door, and he can just _feel_ Mrs Way smiling indulgently behind him.

 

Frank walks back out of the principal's office fifteen minutes later, scot-free, still tasting liquorice between his teeth and wondering how on earth he managed to talk his way out of that one.

 

 

*

 

 

Thankfully, word of this little incident doesn't reach Frank's mom, which is probably why she agrees to let him go to Gerard's birthday party on Saturday night. To be fair, she was on the phone with her boss when he asked her if he could go, but whatever. She said yes, and that's what matters. Gerard invited him to stay over - well, he'd pinned Frank with a look and said, "You'll stay, right?" which amounts to more or less the same thing - so, come Saturday morning, Frank stuffs his pajamas (his favourite red ones with the little black bats on them) and his toothbrush into his backpack, hugs his mom goodbye and flies through the quiet streets to the Ways' house. He's almost vibrating with excitement. He doesn't get invited to many parties, and he just knows this is going to be a good one. He finally reaches the end of the street where Gerard and Mikey's house sits and broods, shoulders open the heavy gate and trots up through the front yard to the door. He knocks, and when Gerard finally opens it to let him in, Frank tackle-hugs him and they both nearly go sprawling. Gerard grumbles and makes a big show of shoving Frank off, but he's totally smiling and there's a faint blush creeping across his face.

 

"Happy birthday," Frank says happily, as Gerard closes the heavy front door behind him. "Here, I got you something." He drops to his knees on the cracked flagstones, heedless of the dusty scuff marks it's going to leave on his one and only pair of dress slacks. He unzips his rucksack, ignoring Gerard's embarrassed muttering about how Frank didn't have to get him anything (it's Gerard's _birthday_ , of course Frank had to), and rummages through it until he finds what he was looking for.

 

"There," he says proudly, reaching up to hand Gerard the small, lumpy package. Frank refused his mom's offer of help and insisted on wrapping it himself, which is why it's more sticky tape than actual wrapping paper. Gerard turns it over in his hands, frowning, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he tugs at the tape and the paper. Frank rocks back on his heels, grinning. It took him _days_ to find the perfect thing, days of going shopping with his mom so he could look around the weird little antique places and junk stores and pawn shops for Gerard's present while she bought groceries. He just hopes Gerard likes it.

 

Eventually, Gerard manages to rip the paper off, and the thing inside slides out into the palm of his hand. It's a heavy silver belt buckle, nearly as big as Frank's whole hand, shaped like a bat.

 

"You like it?" Frank says hopefully, as Gerard holds it up to the light, wide-eyed, running his finger gently along the edge of one of the bat's outstretched metal wings.

 

"Frank," breathes Gerard, his voice low and almost awed. " _Frank_. This is... seriously? Are you sure I can keep this?"

 

Frank frowns up at him. "Uh, yeah? I just _gave_ it to you."

 

Gerard's grin is incandescent, his cheeks pink. "Thanks," he says quietly, and Frank feels all fluttery on the inside.

 

"S'okay," he says, getting to his feet and hugging Gerard again, pressing his face into the hollow of Gerard's shoulder. This time, Gerard doesn't even complain.

 

"Hey, Frank," says Mikey's voice, and Frank disentangles himself from Gerard to see Mikey himself slouching down the stairs towards them. "You wanna come upstairs? Gee was unwrapping his presents and stuff."

 

"Look what Frank got me," Gerard says, before Frank can even open his mouth. He makes a beeline for the bottom of the stairs, and holds out the bat buckle for Mikey to see.

 

"Whoa," says Mikey, sounding more impressed than Frank has ever heard him sound before. He looks up at Frank, who's shouldering his backpack again and crossing the hall in Gerard's wake. "That's cool."

 

Coming from Mikey, this is high praise indeed, and Frank beams.

 

Frank spends an enjoyable afternoon watching Gerard open an interesting assortment of gifts ("...It's a broken mirror." "Uh, yeah? You know, for seven years' bad luck?") and helping the Ways make the house presentable. Frank was briefly worried that this might involve cleaning, but it turned out to consist of putting new candles in the sconces and the candlesticks and the chandelier, and arranging things to display the house's fine collection of cobwebs. It's the kind of "making things presentable" that Frank likes very much.

 

When the first guests arrive at the gate, Mrs Way sends the three of them upstairs to change. Frank is already in his creased and somewhat dusty Sunday best, so he sits on Gerard's bed and watches Cthulhu toying lazily with one of the very real-looking gold doubloons in the bottom of his tank while Gerard fusses with his hair in the cracked, newly-unwrapped mirror. He laughs outright at Mikey in his scuffed hobnailed boots and burgundy velvet jacket then stops when Mikey gives him an evil look highly reminiscent of his mother's, but he exchanges a grin with Gerard as soon as Mikey's back is turned.

 

Once they're all ready, they descend the stairs together into the crowded entrance hall. There are more people than Frank was expecting to see; it looks as if Mrs. Way invited the whole clan. A little later on, Frank sees Gerard surrounded by a crowd of strange-looking relatives, and he's actually _smiling_ , a proper smile, wide and bright, his eyes cast down and his cheeks a little flushed. He looks - he looks happy, Frank realises. He wants Gerard to look like that every day. There are grown-ups everywhere, but they're wearing deep forest greens and wine reds and midnight blues and more shades of black than Frank's ever seen in one place before instead of the pastels favoured by his mom's church friends or the washed-out denims he dimly remembers seeing on his dad's friends from the garage. They dance with him and offer him sips of their drinks and tell jokes he actually laughs at, and he hadn't realised grown-ups could be so much _fun_. No one ruffles Frank's hair or pinches his cheeks or tries to wipe the smear of grave dirt off his forehead, and it's pretty much the best night of his life so far. He falls asleep on the couch sometime after midnight, and he's dimly aware of the world swaying and arms around him as someone carries him up to Gerard's room.

 

"Mrs. Way?" he mumbles groggily. "When I'm fourteen, can I have a party like this too?"

 

She chuckles, low and rich, and smoothes his hair back as she lowers him carefully onto Gerard's bed.

 

"Of course you can, darling. You're _family_ ," she says, and Frank falls asleep with that still ringing in his ears.

 

 

*

 

 

Gerard is really, really smart - there are days when Frank feels like he only really understands about a third of what comes out of Gerard's mouth - and he picks up all these long words like _dolorifugue_ and _exsanguination_ from the weird old books he reads, but he couldn't spell his way out of a paper bag. Which is how Frank finds himself sitting at the Ways' kitchen table that Friday afternoon, red pen in hand, proof-reading Gerard's draft of his class project about serial killers through the ages.

 

"You've spelled ice-pick wrong," he says. "There's another C in it. Your illustration's pretty badass, though."

 

"Lemme see," Gerard says, tugging the sheaf of paper back towards him and squinting at it. "Oh. Yeah, you're right." He squeezes in a miniscule C between the I and the K. On the other side of the table, Mikey is idly folding his history worksheet into something that looks uncannily like some sort of papery torture device.

 

Frank takes Gerard's project back and carries on skimming it for spelling mistakes, and outside, the evening begins to draw in around them. Mikey props his finished origami torture device (formerly a homework assignment, now a piece of art) against one of the heavy candlesticks on the table, then scowls and moves it away when Mrs. Way comes in shortly afterwards starts lighting the candles. Frank likes the candlelight, it's soft and pretty and it casts shadows that flutter like moths and turn familiar things new and strange. So what if he practically has to press his nose to the paper to read Gerard's writing? He doesn't care. He's _happy_.

 

Some time later, Frank glances out of the window and sighs. Outside, the night is pressed up against the glass, looking for a way in. "I should go home," he says. "My mom's gonna be so mad. And I have a math test tomorrow."

 

Mikey grimaces sympathetically, but Gerard leans towards him, hair falling in his eyes and mouth curling lazily at the corners, eyes dark. "It's only math," he whispers, like he's telling Frank a secret. "Stay. We can go explore the secret passage, if you want. There's all kinds of things down there."

 

"What kind of things?" breathes Frank, leaning forwards without even realising he's doing it. The candlelight Frank loves so much does strange things to Gerard's skin, makes him look fey and otherworldly, ageless, all burnished gold and liquid shadows.

 

"Secrets," he whispers back, and his smile is wicked.

 

 

*

 

 

Frank tiptoes up the front yard and carefully slides the spare key out from under the big flowerpot by the door. If he's quiet, his mom won't hear him come in and she'll think she's been in his room all afternoon.

 

That's the plan, anyway.

 

With his tongue poking out of one side of his mouth, he eases the front door open, praying that it won't squeak and give him away. Fortunately, it doesn't, and he scuttles gratefully through--

 

\--and trips over the shoes he left in the hall yesterday, landing with a loud thump and taking out a potted geranium and a hatstand on his way down. For a long moment, silence reigns.

 

"Franklin Anthony Iero, where _have_ you been?"

 

He groans inwardly. He must be in real trouble if his mom is using his middle name, that's never a good sign.

 

"Um," Frank says, trying and failing to sidle past her and away up the stairs to the safety of his bedroom.

 

She groans, and pinches the bridge of her nose like she does when things are bad at work. "No, don't tell me. I know." She emerges fully from the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel. "Oh, for-- look at yourself, Frank!" she snaps, swabbing at the grave dirt on his chin and the plaster dust in his hair, and tutting at the state of his mud-encrusted fingernails. "You're a mess! Look at this sweater, I'll have to sew that tear up. And these! I didn't buy you these!" Frank's mom tugs despairingly at Frank's black dress slacks. They're a hand-me-down from Gerard, who doesn't fit into them anymore. Frank has to cinch them tight around his waist with a belt to stop them falling down, and he trips over the hems a lot unless he rolls them up a few times. There's also a gaping hole in one knee from their excursion through the secret passages of the Way house, which even Gerard later admitted was "more enthusiastic than sensible", and it was his idea in the first place. The point is, these pants have _history._ Frank is _not_ letting his mom take them away.

 

"Mom," Frank whines, trying half-heartedly to swat her hands away as she fusses with his hair and his clothes. "Mom, it's totally not a big deal--"

 

"I think," she says loudly, talking over him in a voice that could cut glass, "I'd like to meet these Ways."

 

 

*

 

 

Which is how Frank finds himself standing on the doorstep of the Way residence at half past six that night, Frank surreptitiously trying to kick the bear trap into the shrubbery while his mom gingerly lifts the heavy knocker and lets it fall. To Frank's mind, the dull thud sounds like a severed head hitting the ground.

 

He has a bad feeling about this.

 

While they wait, Frank's mom fishes a little bottle of hand sanitizer out of her purse and, looking dubiously at the knocker, squeezes a generous dollop out into her hand.

 

"Mom..." Frank says, trying very hard not to sound whiny. He just wants this to go well, that's all.

 

"What? It doesn't look like anyone's cleaned this in years, look!" she protests. "I'm surprised you haven't caught some awful disease, playing here."

 

Frank opens his mouth, then closes it again.

 

At last, the door swings open - seemingly of its own accord. Night is falling fast and inside, Frank can see candles gathered like clutches of mushrooms on every surface. He steps in without thinking, as if pulled by unseen hands, delighted. The light is the soft, rich colour of old gold, fluttering like moth's wings. The cavernous hallway looks much better in the dark, Frank thinks. The assorted paraphernalia scattered around looks as if it's meant to be there, not like mess, and the thick drifts of shadows in the corners are positively begging to be explored.

 

Frank's mom follows him in somewhat cautiously, her low heels clicking loudly on the cracked flagstones.

 

"Mrs. Iero."

 

Frank looks up to see Mrs. Way standing at the top of the broad, sweeping staircase at the far end of the room. She's dressed in black, as usual, her fair hair a chaotic halo around her face, her eyes dramatically dark-rimmed and jewels sparkling at her throat. She looks like a storybook witch queen, smiling a wide, blood-red smile and gliding down the stairs towards them. "So glad you came," she purrs. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

 

Frank's mom looks slightly taken aback. "It's Ms., actually, but call me Linda," she says, extending her hand for Mrs. Way to shake.

 

"Donna," says Mrs. Way, taking Frank's mom's hand. The two of them make an odd picture, Mrs. Way in all her finery and Frank's mom in the same no-nonsense grey skirt and peach-coloured jacket she wore when she signed the papers that would cut Mr. Iero out of their lives for good. If Mrs. Way is a fairytale figure brought to life, Frank's mom is a real person who's accidentally stumbled through the looking glass into a strange, larger-than-life Elsewhere.

 

"Come through, I'll get you a drink," Mrs. Way says, sweeping towards the scorched kitchen door.

 

"Oh - thank you. This is, uh... quite a place you've got here," Frank's mom says, looking around doubtfully.

 

"It's haunted, isn't it, Mrs. Way?" Frank says happily, trotting along in her wake and trying to keep up.

 

"Frank!" hisses his mom, swatting at him, embarrassed. "I'm so sorry, Donna, he didn't mean to--"

 

"Oh, it's fine," Mrs. Way says breezily, flashing Frank a smile. "They're only children, after all. We have to let them have their fun, don't we?"

 

Before Frank's mom can answer, a familiar voice sounds from the staircase.

 

"Hi, Frank."

 

"Gerard!" Frank practically bounces over to him and manages to grab him in a sneaky top-speed hug before Gerard extricates himself again and makes a big show of grumbling and smoothing his shirt down. His hair is falling over his eyes, but Frank can see that he's smiling. Behind Gerard, Mikey does the little shrug-wave he does when he's pleased to see Frank but doesn't want to seem too enthusiastic about it.

 

"Hi, Mikey," says Frank cheerfully, scampering back down the stairs to his mom, who looks rather startled.

 

Mrs. Way leads them through the kitchen (where there's a motley collection of pots and pans crowded together on the stove and the counter) to the dining room. Frank has only been in here once or twice before, but he thinks it looks beautiful. The great, tangled chandelier overhead is lit with yet more candles, and silver cutlery glints on the enormous table. Frank catches Gerard and Mikey eyeing a long scratch in the varnish guiltily, and grins.

 

"Sit down, sit down," says Mrs. Way, waving them magnanimously towards the table. "Something to drink? Wine, Linda?"

 

"No, thank you," Frank's mom says primly. "I'm driving, I'm afraid."

 

"Ahh, of course. Say no more, say no more." Mrs. Way winks. "I like to keep a clear head myself when I'm out on my broomstick at night." She laughs a low, throaty laugh, and Frank giggles. Somehow, it isn't at all difficult to believe that Mrs. Way really does ride a broomstick.

 

"Boys? Frank?"

 

"Yes please," Gerard says meekly, and Mikey nods.

 

"You let them drink?" Frank's mom sounds more than slightly disapproving, and Frank winces. "At that age?"

 

"Oh, of course. How else are they supposed to acquire a taste for wine? Anyway, I'd rather they drank here than anywhere else. Much safer, don't you think?"

 

Frank's mom looks like she's about to say that, no, she does not think, and Frank's toes curl in his shoes. Oh dear.

 

Fortunately, Mrs. Way vanishes into the kitchen and returns after an interminable minute of uncomfortable small talk with a bottle cradled in her arms.

 

"That wine cellar is in the most awful state," she tuts, brushing a cobweb from her shoulder. Frank sees his mom flinch. "I must get Bob to do something about it. Those poor spiders, they deserve so much better."

 

Thankfully, Frank's mom chooses to ignore this last remark. "Bob is...?"

 

"Oh, just an old friend of the family," Mrs. Way says breezily, producing a corkscrew that looks like it could be a torture instrument in its spare time and thrusting it into the bottle's cork. "My husband has been... missing for some time now."

 

"But that's awful!" Frank's mom's hand flies up to cover her mouth. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea. I didn't mean to--"

 

"Oh, hush, you couldn't have known. Don't be sorry." Mrs. Way uncorks the bottle with a sprightly pop and dismisses Frank's mom's apology with an airy wave of her hand as she pours the wine into three of the cut-glass goblets on the table. "I'm certainly not!" she adds with what Frank is fairly sure is a cackle, her eyes sparkling wickedly.

 

 

*

 

 

From his mom's tight-lipped silence on the way home, Frank infers that the evening wasn't a success. He sits in the backseat of their ancient car, twisting his fingers together as the streetlights slide past. He fidgets uncomfortably, and waits.

 

"Frank," she says eventually, and her voice sounds the way it always does when she's choosing her words very carefully indeed. "Sweetheart... don't you think Gerard and his brother--"

 

"Mikey."

 

"Don't you think Gerard and Mikey seem a little bit..." she pauses delicately. " _Too_ close?"

 

Frank looks blankly at her. "Too close?" he says. Having no siblings of his own, he's no expert or anything, but he doesn't really understand how that can be a bad thing.

 

"You don't think it's - not healthy, the way they don't play with any other children?"

 

"That's not fair!" Frank explodes. "It's not _their_ fault other kids are too lame to play with them! They pick on them, mom," he says beseechingly.

 

"Well," she says, in her no-nonsense voice. "I don't think I want you spending any more time with them."

 

"What?" Frank is too shell-shocked even to argue back properly. "But you can't--"

 

"I can," she says firmly, as they pull up outside their house. His mom opens her door and steps out. "And I am, and that's the last I want to hear about this."

 

Frank gapes at her, speechless. He scrambles out after her, throwing his own door shut with slightly more force than necessary. "But they're my _friends_ ," he says weakly. "You're always saying you want me to make friends, what... what's wrong with them?"

 

She sighs and ruffles his hair, but when she tries to pull him in for a hug he squirms away, scowling for all he's worth.

 

"You'll make other friends," she says, suddenly sounding tired. "C'mon, munchkin, it's past your bedtime."

 

Later that night, curled up in his bed and looking out at the stars in the tree branches outside, Frank can't help thinking that even if it was as easy as just making new friends, they'd never be as good as the old ones.

 

 

*

 

 

Time drags during Frank's lessons the next morning, ticking away agonisingly slowly towards recess. Frank _needs_ to see Gerard and Mikey, to tell them what happened last night. He drums his heels against the floor and stares at the clock on the wall, willing the hands to move faster. Soon, he tells himself. Soon.

 

Recess finally arrives, but no matter how many times Frank circles around the schoolyard looking for them, there's no sign of the Ways. At first he thinks they're just hiding from the teachers, but a search of their favourite haunts - the overgrown bushes by the little pond, the narrow, cobwebby space behind the bike shed - proves fruitless too. He trails miserably back inside when the bell rings, dragging his feet. He wonders if Gerard is sick again, like before. He wonders if he somehow got Gerard and Mikey into trouble.

 

Most of all, though, he wonders if it's all somehow his fault.

 

 

*

 

 

The next week at school is one of the worst Frank can remember. Things are even worse than they were before Gerard and Mikey came screaming into his quiet, ordered little life, as if the colours have been washed out and faded by the rain. Frank is truly, utterly miserable. It's been over a week, he realises, as he sits slumped at his desk on Monday afternoon. A week since he saw his only friends, a week since anyone who wasn't either his mom or a teacher even spoke to him. He knows his mom is a lot happier now, but he misses them and it hurts so much he feels as if it might split him at the seams.

 

When the bell finally rings, heralding the end of the day's lessons, the sky is dark and crowded with leaden clouds. Frank can just hear the first drops of rain pattering on the roof and the windows over the deafening scraping of chair legs on the floor as the other kids scramble for their coats and bags, but not even the prospect of a good storm is enough to cheer him up today. He pushes his chair back from his desk and slowly zips up his jacket as the others push and shove their way towards the classroom door, then heaves his backpack up onto his shoulders and slouches after them.

 

The rain is falling hard by the time Frank steps out into the chilly, damp schoolyard, already half-empty. He doesn't even bother looking around for his mom, he knows she's working late today and that a tupperware container with a heart-shaped sticky note on the lid will be waiting for him in the fridge. With a dejected sigh, he heads towards the gates and starts on his way home. He left his umbrella at home that morning and he's soaked to the skin within seconds, cold rain dripping from his hair into his eyes and running down the back of his neck. There's already water in his shoes as he squelches morosely up the street, numbing his toes. He tries to imagine himself as a terrible sea monster, rising from the deep with water pouring from every part of him, but his imagination sputters and stalls and all he sees is a small kid in a waterlogged jacket who bears more than a passing resemblance to a drowned rat. Instead, he tries to see zombies in the shapes of the roiling clouds overhead, but even that doesn't help.

 

He keeps walking, and tries not to think about what a fantastic story Gerard would be able to spin about cloud zombies.

 

Eventually, he turns down his street and crosses his small front yard in just a few steps. He doesn't even bother avoiding the cracks in the concrete path. The monsters have made it quite apparent that they're not in the mood to come out and play today. He pauses on the doorstep, his key clutched in his cold, wet hand and his hair plastered to his skull, and looks back out at the street, painted in clumsy streaks by the falling rain. Séance weather, he thinks, and he turns back around and steps inside.

 

He reheats the leftovers in the fridge and eats them off a tray in front of the TV, which is something his mom definitely would not have allowed had she been around to see it. But he figures that what she doesn't know won't hurt her, and anyway, he only got the tiniest speck of tomato sauce on the cushion, and he was careful to turn it over and hide the evidence. Afterwards, he drags his school bag in from the hall and retrieves the sodden work sheet from it. It's pretty much illegible, the ink smeared and the words all blurred out. He lays it out carefully on the kitchen table and hopes he won't get into too much trouble.

 

 

*

 

 

Without the Ways, Frank's little world is a gloomy place indeed. He goes to bed with a sniffle and wakes up the next morning with a streaming cold, and for once he doesn't even mind when his mom takes one look at him and sends him back to bed. He shuffles forlornly back upstairs, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his pajamas. It's raining outside again, the skies bloated and heavy, and Frank remembers Gerard's ghost story. It was a story about rain and dead things walking where they shouldn't walk, and Frank experiences a sad, faded echo of the delicious flutter of fear that only a really good ghost story can draw out.

 

He clambers back into bed, and shortly afterwards his mom nudges the door open with her hip and carefully bears a heavily-laden tray of food over to him. He takes it, and balances it precariously in his lap. With a sigh, she lays a cool hand on his forehead.

 

"You're a little warm," she announces, a furrow appearing between her eyebrows. "How do you feel?"

 

Frank shrugs. His head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton wool, but he's had worse. This is nowhere near as bad as last Christmas, when he was struck down with an ill-timed bout of tonsillitis. Really, he's just bored, and he hasn't even been in bed a day yet. He's bored with his room and the view from the window and all his books and even the Gameboy he'd had to beg and plead for months to get his hands on. "'M alright," he says disconsolately, and she twists her lip like she always does when she's worried.

 

"Are you sure? I have to work this morning but I could call Auntie Catherine--"

 

"I'm fine," he says, this time with more conviction. It's not that he doesn't like Auntie Catherine, but she'll try to get him to meditate again and burn that funny-smelling stuff that makes his throat get all tight. Meditation did not agree with Frank, although he did swap the heavy crystal pendant she gave him for nearly a whole packet of peanut butter cups at school.

 

"Well, if you're sure," his mom says, but she still doesn't look happy. "Eat something, okay? You'll feel better. My cell phone number is on the fridge if you need to call me. Don't go sneaking out while I'm gone."

 

Frank tries valiantly to look insulted by the very suggestion that he of all people would do a thing like that. Unfortunately, he can see his reflection in the window, and it just looks guilty. "I won't," he mumbles, but she isn't listening.

 

"I'll be home for lunch to check on you. Bye, munchkin." She drops a kiss on his forehead, ruffles his hair, and then she's gone. Frank is all alone in the house, a prospect that used to hold infinite excitement and possibility, but now he can't bring himself to care. Nothing is any fun without the Ways.

 

Frank languishes in bed all morning, picking unenthusiastically at his breakfast until long after the toast has gone cold and limp, the eggs have turned rubbery and the Frankenberry cereal - his _favourite_ \- is disintegrating sadly into the milk. He drifts in and out of a fitful, restless sleep, feeling disoriented and groggy every time he stumbles back into consciousness. He tries to read, but his head pounds and his chest aches and his eyes slide over the words like rain over rooftops.

 

He really, really hates being sick.

 

A little later, through the fog of sleepiness, he's dimly aware of the sound of the front door opening and then closing again. He flips his pillow over, pressing his face to the cool side, and closes his eyes again. It's just his mom, back from work. She'll come up to see him soon, and if he makes himself look pathetic and sickly enough she might just bring him up some chocolate milk. Slightly cheered by this thought, he slips back into sleep.

 

"Frankie?" he feels his mom's hand, cool on his forehead, and he opens his eyes slightly.

 

"Wuh?" he says intelligently. The room is spinning. Is it possible for your brain to boil in your skull if your temperature gets too high? He's not sure. Gerard would know.

 

"Gerard and Mikey are here to see you," she says, in a tone of profound disapproval. Frank sits up so fast the world lurches horribly, and he nearly blacks out again. Two dark figures swim muzzily into focus and his heart swells and he could swear his head feels just a little bit clearer than it did a minute ago. They're _here_.

 

"How d'you know I was sick?" he mumbles, rubbing his eyes and surreptitiously pinching himself to make sure he isn't dreaming. "Why haven't you been in school?"

 

"Hi, Frank," says Gerard, skating over Frank's first question. "Bob was, uh... fixing our kitchen." He darts a surreptitious look at Frank's mom. Frank can't imagine what in the world could have happened to the Ways' kitchen that Mrs. Way couldn't fix. Something more than a busted faucet, that's for sure. "There was a, uh. Kind of a plague of toads situation. We went to stay with Aunt Millicent," Gerard continues. "She couldn't come today, but she asked me to give you this." He presents Frank with a little cardboard box, which Frank opens to find a spidery mobile made of copper wire and little brass gears. He knows he's running a pretty serious temperature right now, but he could swear it shudders under his fingers, warm and responsive.

 

"It'll start spinning if you're about to die," Gerard explains cheerfully, as he hangs it carefully from the lampshade.

 

"And if you do, we'll make sure your funeral's one to remember," is Mikey's solemn contribution, and Frank actually does feel a little better.

 

"Thanks, guys," he croaks, with a faint smile. Frank _loves_ Gerard and Mikey's aunt Millicent. She's one of his favourite Way relatives. She's ninety-six years old and as sharp as a pin, with a mane of iron-grey curls streaked with remnants of coppery auburn, and the brightest green eyes Frank's ever seen. There's usually a pair of elaborate goggles perched on top of her head, or a smudge of soot on her cheek. She never visits without something new in her pockets, and she always brings something for Frank. The first time they'd met, at Gerard's birthday party, she shook Frank's hand solemnly and immediately presented him with a tiny mechanical frog made of brightly-polished brass with little orange gems for eyes. It fits perfectly into Frank's palm, and Frank later discovered that it if he winds it up, it really does eat bugs.

 

"Oh, and Ma said to tell you that's what you get for playing in graveyards," adds Gerard helpfully.

 

"It's an expression," Frank reassures his mom quickly when her mouth drops open in horror. "Not, like, _actual_ graveyards."

 

Gerard and Mikey don't stay for long, possibly because Frank's mom is still hovering with her mouth pressed into a thin line. Once they've said their goodbyes and traipsed back downstairs and out through the front door, Frank's good mood dims a little. His mom is going to have something to say about this. His heart sinks as he hears the door close behind them, and then his mom's footsteps on the stairs.

 

"I didn't invite them," Frank says immediately, as soon as him mom has stepped back into his room. "They haven't even been at school this week." He manages a mournful little cough. "They're nice," he says, watching his mom's face carefully. "Really nice, mom, they're just... different."

 

One corner of his mom's mouth lifts. "Different," she says. "That's one word for it." She gives him a long, searching look. "But you're a bit different, too, aren't you?"

 

For a long moment, he thinks he might be in trouble, but then her face softens.

 

"I... am prepared to admit I might have been wrong about your friends," she says, coming over and sitting down on the end of his bed.

 

Frank waits with bated breath.

 

"They came to visit you," she says slowly. "Because you were sick. That's... that was very sweet of them."

 

Frank nods encouragingly.

 

She sighs, and gets to her feet. "If you're happy, munchkin," she says, wrapping an arm around him and giving him a quick squeeze. "You know I love you, right?"

 

"Love you too," he says. He doesn't even try to wriggle out of her grip. She can feel her smiling against his hair.

 

"I'll bring you up some chocolate milk," she says, and Frank goes back to sleep with a smile on his face as the mobile hanging from the lampshade turns slowly.

 

 

*

 

 

By Thursday, Frank is well enough to go back to school, and he makes straight for Gerard and Mikey in the corner of the schoolyard at recess. He knows there's something up before Gerard has even opened his mouth; his dark eyes are almost feverishly bright, glittering like a beetle's wings.

 

"The county building inspector is coming next week," he announces, before Frank has the chance to ask. "Ma got the letter this morning."

 

Frank blinks. He runs through Gerard's words again in his head, looking for some hidden meaning that he missed the first time, but draws a blank. He's not exactly sure why this is such a cause for excitement. To him, it smacks of _adult_ things, and not the fun, exciting kind - the kind that he's glad he won't have to deal with for a long, long time. "Oh," he says, eventually. "That's, uh."

 

Mikey takes pity on him. "Every year," he explains, "Someone comes and looks around our house. You know, to make sure it's _safe_." He utters the last word with such an expression of refined distaste that Frank actually giggles.

 

"It's because it's an old house or something," says Gerard, rolling his eyes. "It's totally stupid. It's perfectly safe, unless you're a moron. I mean, you've never gotten hurt in there, right?"

 

Frank shakes his head. In his mind, one or two minor cuts and scrapes sustained in the name of adventure don't really count. His mom would beg to differ, but that's beside the point.

 

"Exactly," Gerard says, as if Frank has just proven his point beyond all possible doubt. "Because you're not a moron."

 

Frank beams.

 

"And every year, we prank the inspector," Mikey goes on. His eyes are glinting just like his brother's, like hidden things just out of reach in the dark. "We're really good at it. We don't _hurt_ them," he adds, seeing the look on Frank's face. "Just... scare them a little bit."

 

"We've never had the same inspector twice," says Gerard, pride shining through his face like sunlight through clouds. It's almost blinding. "They never come back. It's not our fault they scare easily."

 

"Doesn't your mom mind?" Frank asks. "Mine would go _crazy_."

 

"No," Mikey says indifferently, and Gerard shrugs. "She pretends to get mad. I think she just thinks it's funny."

 

Gerard turns a devastating smile on Frank, unhinged and bewitching. "So," he says. "Are you in?"

 

 

*

 

 

On Saturday morning, Frank wolfs down his toast so fast it makes him feel slightly sick, then heads straight out for the Ways' house. It's a deliciously crisp morning, as tart and perfect as the first bite of a candy apple. Tentacles of fog are draped over the trees and rooftops and streetlights like cobwebs. He sinks his hands into his pockets as he tramps towards the Ways' house, his breath rising in pale swirls in the chill air. He reaches the top of the hill and picks his way confidently across the overgrown front yard, dodging the assorted obstacles that litter the path. The knocker makes a satisfyingly loud, clear thud against the door, and Frank stomps his feet to keep them warm as he waits for someone to come to the door. Eventually, it creaks open, and Mrs. Way appears and ushers him inside. She's dressed to the nines, as usual, her black dress skimming the flagstones, her hair piled up on top of her head, her eyelids painted coal-black and her wrists and throats glittering with jewels.

 

"Frank, _darling_ ," she says, enfolding him in a hug that smells at once of something sweet and flowery and something coppery and strange. As always, she seems utterly delighted to see him. "Would you like anything to eat?"

 

"No thanks, Mrs. Way," he says. "I already had breakfast." His mom would be so proud if she could see him now. He puts on his most winning smile, the one that can soften even his own mother. "Are Gerard and Mikey here?"

 

"In the library. They're having a top secret meeting," she says, seriously. "They asked me not to disturb them, but I don't think they'll mind you going in. You know where the library is, don't you?"

 

"Yup," he says happily, already halfway across the hall.

 

"Better take the back stairs," she calls after him. "The main ones are a little... grumpy today."

 

He changes course mid-step, making for the back stairs instead, vaguely aware of Mrs. Way watching him go with a fond smile.

 

Frank hurries down the dusty back stairs and along the narrow hallway that leads to the library. When he reaches the door, he sees a sign pinned to it, written in Gerard's distinctive scrawl: _KEEP OUT! TOP SECRET MEETING IN PROGRESS_.

 

Frank reads it diligently, then reaches for the doorknob anyway and lets himself in.

 

"Ma!" comes Gerard's indignant voice from behind a teetering stack of books. "You said--" his head appears over the top of the books, and he stops. "Oh, hey, Frank. C'mere, you're gonna love this."

 

Grinning, Frank scurries over to where Gerard and Mikey are sitting side by side on a big old couch upholstered in cracked, wine-red leather before a low coffee table groaning under the weight of a number of large books.

 

 

*

 

 

The county building inspector is a small, balding man in a greyish suit, the shoulders damp from the rain. Watching from the circular attic window, Frank sees him step gingerly through the gate and proceed across the front yard with extreme caution. They'd used a long stick to prod the bear trap into the long grass the previous morning, but it's a very determined bear trap, and it might well have climbed back up onto the overgrown path again. However, it seems that the inspector must have made it up the path unscathed, because he vanishes from sight and, a moment later, the sonorous thump of the door knocker sounds.

 

On cue, Frank sounds the signal: one long, low hoot, like an owl.

 

Nothing happens.

 

Frank hoots again.

 

The attic trapdoor creaks open and the top of Mikey's head appears, wobbling slightly as Mikey teeters on the ladder below. "What was that?" he whispers.

 

"The signal," Frank hisses back. "You know--" he does it again, for Mikey's benefit.

 

Mikey wrinkles his nose and looks extremely sceptical. "That didn't sound much like an owl," he says.

 

"It did so," Frank says, affronted, drawing himself up to his full height of four feet and seven inches. He sucks in a deep breath to demonstrate again.

 

"Okay, okay," Mikey says quickly. "I'm going back. You stay here and keep watch. If he's still inside after five minutes, you come down to the library. If he comes back out--"

 

"I know, I _know_ ," says Frank, rolling his eyes. "Go!"

 

Mikey's head vanishes and trapdoor closes with a dull thud. Frank waits, counting carefully under his breath - one Mississippi, two Mississippi - then scampers back across the attic, heaves the trapdoor open and clambers down onto the ladder beneath.

 

Back in the library, phase one of the grand plan begins in earnest. Gerard has an enormous, leatherbound book that weighs almost as much as Frank open in front of him and a stick of chalk in his hand as he kneels on the floor, the tip of his tongue poking out, carefully drawing out an elaborate pentagram on the dark floorboards. Frank watches in dutiful silence, almost vibrating with excitement.

 

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" asks Mikey doubtfully. Gerard is now making mystic passes over his lopsided pentagram with a baseball bat and muttering under his breath in Latin.

 

"Yes! I mean, how many times have we seen Ma do it? How hard can it be, right?"

 

Frank privately thinks that Gerard doesn't actually sound too sure at all.

 

"And..." Gerard says, getting to his feet and waving his baseball bat one more time. "Tada!"

 

Nothing happens. Frank blinks up at him expectantly.

 

"That can't be right," mutters Gerard. He leans forward to peer at the book again, but then there's a loud crack, a flash of light and a strong smell of bad eggs.

 

Frank wrinkles his nose, but he's grinning. "That," he says, "was _so cool_."

 

One corner of Gerard's mouth lifts. "Yeah?" he says softly, his eyes sparkling, then he clears his throat. "I mean, uh, yeah. Spirit summoning. It's kind of cool, I guess."

 

Mikey is squinting at the book. "Gee," he says urgently. "I think we might have a problem."

 

"What, what did I do?" Gerard asks, sounding ever so slightly petulant. He hunkers down and scoots closer to the book.

 

"Here." Mikey points to a line of tiny, cramped text. "You went straight to _et nostra nobis fiet res ita fiat semper_ , you missed out _sic habeas manere prope_."

 

"I did not!"

 

"You did so," Mikey says, chewing worriedly at his lip. "Didn't he, Frank?"

 

They both turn to look at him, Gerard accusing and Mikey reproachful.

 

"You kind of did," Frank says apologetically. "Will that matter?" he looks worriedly up at Gerard. It seems to him that getting the words right ought to be quite important.

 

"No," says Gerard confidently. He frowns. "Or... maybe. I don't know."

 

There is a long, long silence.

 

"We should tell Ma," Mikey says eventually. "She'll know how to fix it."

 

For a moment, Gerard looks like he might be on the point of arguing, then he seems to deflate. "Yeah, I guess," he says gloomily. "C'mon, let's go get her."

 

They trail out of the library, Frank patting Gerard consolingly on the shoulder.

 

"It still looked really cool," he says earnestly, and Gerard rewards him with a small, slightly sheepish smile. They take the narrow hallway and then the back stairs again, since they won't be telling anyone anything if the front ones aren't in the mood to take them where they want to go.

 

But when they reach the top of the stairs, Gerard stops in his tracks, and Frank and Mikey go stumbling into him. Once they've disentangled themselves, Frank peers around Gerard into the dimly-lit main hall. He can hear Mrs. Way clattering away in the kitchen, presumably fetching drinks or snacks, but standing between her and them is the building inspector.

 

The building inspector is swaying slightly in place, his eyes a sick, strange yellow.

 

"Ah," says Gerard.

 

At the sound of his voice, the inspector turns to face them with an oddly stiff, awkward movement.

 

"I AM FREE," he says, in ringing tones that echo impressively in the large room. His mouth seems to open wider than it should, a huge, gaping maw that sits uncomfortably between the neat suit and tidily-trimmed hair. "I AM RETURNED FROM BEYOND THE VEIL." Slowly, his feet leave the floor and he begins to float eerily towards them. "AND I... AM... _HUNGRY_."

 

Behind them, the door that leads to the back stairs slams shut. The kitchen door rattles on its hinges but doesn't open; Mrs. Way must be locked in there. The inspector continues to float up towards the ceiling and bounces off, like a very sinister balloon. They watch in horrified silence as he bounces off again and twirls through the air, making straight for them with arms outstretched.

 

"Come _on_ ," Frank gasps, seizing Gerard and Mikey and making a run for the main stairs, now the only escape route left that doesn't require them to pass the possessed inspector.

 

"Frank, no!" Gerard yells, as he realises what Frank is doing, but it's too late. Frank's sneaker-clad feet are already on the bottom step, the carpet sucking greedily at his soles. He runs faster still, knowing instinctively that slowing down right now would be a fatal mistake. He doesn't let go of Gerard and Mikey, dragging them up towards the top, panting and stumbling. He feels the staircase shiver angrily beneath him as he hops up onto the mezzanine, like a wild animal cheated of its prey. Gerard and Mikey follow suit a moment later, both wide-eyed.

 

"Wow," says Mikey, staring at Frank. Frank looks at him, nonplussed.

 

"What?" he says.

 

"You," Gerard says. He's staring too. It's quite disconcerting. "Even Bob wouldn't have been brave enough to try that."

 

Frank hadn't realised he was being brave. It just seemed like the only sensible thing to do, under the circumstances. He smiles, feeling distinctly... fluttery.

 

Not for long, though.

 

"Look," he says, pointing back down into the hall. The inspector is floating towards the staircase, which makes a low, rumbling, slurping noise, as if in anticipation.

 

"If he steps on it..." Mikey says.

 

"...It'll swallow him," finishes Gerard, frowning. "That's no good, they'll send people to look for him if he just disappears. Come on, we need to lead him away."

 

"This way," Mikey says, and before either Frank or Gerard can say a word, he's hauling himself up onto the bannister and sliding back down towards the bottom.

 

"Mikes!" Gerard yells, sounding panicked, and slides down after him to land neatly on the floor. Frank follows suit, disembarking rather less gracefully, then gets to his feet again, brushing off his skinned knees and looking around at the inspector. He's still levitating in mid air, his eyes glowing and his thinning hair floating around his head as if he's underwater. He begins to descend on them with terrible purpose, his mouth agape. Frank stands, rooted to the spot, and stares.

 

"Back stairs," hisses Gerard, seizing Frank and Mikey by the hands and dragging them across to the narrow hallway. The inspector lets out a terrible howl of rage but Frank doesn't look back, stumbling along in Gerard's wake, and he slams the door behind them.

 

"Where do we go now?" Frank pants, stumbling along the dark hallway, his shoulder bumping against Mikey's and his heart jackhammering in his chest. He doesn't dare look back over his shoulder, terrified that he see the inspector bouncing off the walls behind them, his gleaming eyes like hot coals in the gloom.

 

"Back to the library," Gerard calls back over his shoulder. "We won't be able to get Ma out of the kitchen until we get rid of the thing in the inspector, we'll have to do it ourselves. Come on!"

 

Frank can hear the door that leads back into the hall rattling ominously behind them but he doesn't look back, just holds onto Gerard's hand for dear life and runs for all he's worth.

 

The three of them clatter down the back stairs and skid to a halt outside the library door. Gerard wrenches it open and they all pile in, Mikey slamming it shut again behind them. Gerard looks around, wild-eyed and gasping, his hair even more artistically dishevelled than usual. "No lock," he says, clutching at a stitch in his side. "There's no lock on this door, we'll have to..."

 

He leaves the sentence unfinished and instead lunges for the old chaise-longue with scarred, wine-red leather upholstery and starts pushing it towards the door. Catching on, Frank and Mikey both dive to help him. It's heavy and its clawed wooden feet squeal in protest against the parquet floor, but between them they manage to heave it across to block the doorway.

 

"Okay," says Gerard, straightening up. He sounds calmer now, slightly less short of breath. "Okay, that should hold it for a bit. We need the spell to send it back. Mikey, can you go find the--" something passes briefly across his face. "--Elena's Grimoire?"

Mikey nods, still breathing too hard to speak, and dashes off into the stacks, presumably to look for the Grimoire. Whatever that might be.

 

"What's a Grimoire?" Frank asks, as Gerard produces what looks like a salt shaker from his pocket.

 

"It's, uh," Gerard says distractedly, as he fumbles the lid off the salt shaker, drops to his knees and starts to pour out the salt onto the floor, outlining a large, slightly wonky circle right in front of the chaise-longue currently barricading the door shut. "It's a spellbook, sort of. My... mine and Mikey's grandma wrote it."

 

Frank barely has a thought to spare for whether this is the grandmother that Mrs. Way mentioned, whose third burial so upset Gerard. "Your grandma wrote a spellbook?" he breathes, awed. He wishes his nana was the sort of person who owned spellbooks, let alone _wrote_ one. All Frank's nana does is try to get him to eat third helpings of the weird food she makes from the recipes she finds on the backs of boxes and cans of food. Her only other hobby is complaining loudly about everything from the length of Frank's hair to the state of his shoes.

 

"Yeah," says Gerard, a little sadly, drawing a wobbly line from one side of his circle to the other. "It's all the stuff she ever learned or used or, like, discovered."

 

"So she was a witch?" Frank says hopefully.

 

"She was a witch." Gerard says it like it's obvious.

 

"She sounds cool," says Frank quietly. "I wish I'd gotten to meet her."

 

Gerard's head is bent over the large five-pointed star he's now tracing inside the circle, his hair falling over his face and hiding it from view. "She was," he says, and sniffs. "She would have liked you."

 

Frank doesn't know what to say to that, and he's deeply grateful when Mikey reappears, weighed down by the most enormous book Frank has ever seen. The imposing cover, bound in what looks a lot like crocodile skin, is taller than Mikey's entire upper half. In fact, it makes him look sort of like a giant book with two skinny, scabby-kneed legs, which Frank would find absolutely hilarious if they weren't in such a mess.

 

"I found it," Mikey grunts, somewhat unnecessarily, as he thumps the tome down on the floor next to Gerard, back cover down. Frank scoots closer to get a better look. If he stood up, it would reach his knees; it must be thousands of pages long.

 

"Wow," he breathes. He wants to touch it, run his fingertips over the mottled binding and the faded, gold-embossed title, but he doesn't quite dare. This book, he knows without having to be told, is sacred.

 

Mikey is looking over Gerard's shoulder as he adds a few squiggly symbols around the edge of the circle and sits back, evidently scanning it for mistakes. "I think I've done it right," he says, his small, even teeth worrying his lower lip. "But - Frank, could you see if you can find us something we could fight with? If we have to, I mean."

 

"You mean, like... weapons?" says Frank doubtfully. It might be the Ways' library, but it's still a library.

 

"Anything," Mikey says. "Whatever you can find. You know." He glances sidelong at his brother. "Just in case."

 

Given what happened earlier, Frank this sounds like a very sensible idea. "I'll go look," he says, and he gets to his feet and pads off to see what the library has to offer in the way of weaponry.

 

His search is surprisingly fruitful, and once he's picked up three things (one for each of them) that could conceivably be used in self-defence, he returns to where Gerard and Mikey are huddled together over the open book.

 

"Here," he says, dropping his haul. He takes an antique silver candlestick, Gerard grabs the ominously stained baseball bat he was using earlier, and Mikey favours the classic yet effective pointy stick. Thus equipped, they return their attention to the Grimoire.

 

"It's in here somewhere," Gerard says helplessly, opening one page after another, seemingly at random. "But there's no index, none of it's in order. We won't have time--"

 

The door rattles, pushing against their temporary barricade, which wobbles dangerously.

 

"Gee," says Mikey urgently, tugging at Gerard's sleeve. "C'mon, you have to find it. I know you can."

 

"Yeah," Frank says encouragingly. "Come on, Gerard."

 

Gerard is looking all wild-eyed again, like he could bolt at any moment - not that there's anywhere to go. With apparent effort, he pulls himself together.

 

"Spell," he mutters, pushing his hair back from his face with one hand and flipping through the pages with the other. "It has to be in here. Vanishing... Spider-charming..." the door shakes in its frame again and Gerard breaks off with a yell of frustration as the chaise-longue threatens to slide back across the floor. "I can't do it!" he almost shouts, his eyes screwed up. "It's no good, I'll never find it in time!"

 

Another rattle, this one louder, angrier, and a gust of wind sweeps through the room and ruffles the pages of the Grimoire - and stills again, leaving the book open at a page headed _Banishing A Hostile Spirit_. The three of them stare at it, dumbstruck. Just for a moment, Frank is almost sure he can smell gunpowder underpinned by something sweet and flowery. Gerard stiffens, his eyes darting around as he scans the room.

 

"Grandma?" he calls, in a soft, raw voice. All three of them wait with bated breath, but no answer comes.

 

"She's not here, Gee," Mikey murmurs after a long moment, his eyes dark and sad.

 

"She was," Gerard says, although he doesn't sound at all sure. "I thought, just for a minute..."

 

He looks around again, as if he's expecting her to step out from behind one of the shelves. "She was here," he says again, in a very small voice. Mikey takes his hand and squeezes it and Frank wants to hug them both, but something tells him not to.

Gerard seems to snap back to the present situation. He drops Mikey's hand and scrambles back to the Grimoire, running his finger down the page. "Okay," he says. His voice is stronger now. "Yes. We can do this. Mikey, Frank, you should maybe stand back."

 

Frank and Mikey exchange worried looks and back away quickly, Mikey clutching his pointy stick so tightly his knuckles are white to the bone and Frank clinging nervously to the candlestick. Gerard struggles to lift the book, his teeth clenched and his legs shaking as he gets slowly to his feet. He takes two unsteady paces away from the circle, facing the door as it rattles violently on its hinges. Frank edges a little closer to Mikey, his own heartbeat deafeningly loud in his ears.

 

The door flies open with a bang, the heavy chaise-longue skidding noisily across the floor and thudding against the wall. In the doorway is the floating figure of the inspector, seething with that eerie yellow light and letting out a roar of triumph. Frank stifles a little gasp and grabs for Mikey's hand, clinging to it as if Mikey is the safe place in a game of tag. It crosses the threshold and begins to advance on them. Gerard's face is pale and bloodless and Frank desperately wants to grab him and Mikey and run for it. It's getting closer and closer, it's going to get them--

 

\--and stops, its expression of fiendish exaltation turning to one of fury. Its face has a curiously flat look, as if it's pressed up against a window, and when Frank looks down at its feet, he understands. It's right over the edge of the circle. The ring of salt on the floor is somehow keeping it in, but Frank can see that they don't have long. Once again, an unearthly wind fills the room, tousling Gerard's hair like the fingers of an unseen hand and, bit by bit, blowing the salt away. The clean, strong line of the circle is smudging, wearing dangerously thin, and all Frank can do is watch as Gerard begins to read aloud from his grandmother's Grimoire. His shaky voice grows stronger with each word, and Frank can feel the power of the spell rippling over his skin like waves of electricity, making all his hair stand on end. He wants to cheer Gerard on, but his voice doesn't seem to be working. All he can do is stand there, hand in hand with Mikey while Gerard drives away the ghost.

 

The wind picks up, sensing resistance and struggling, whipping at Gerard's hair and sending the yellowed pages of the book fluttering. Gerard is almost shouting now, bracing himself against the strength and the fury of the thing they summoned into the inspector. The salt line has worn away to almost nothing, only a few grains left between them and it in places.

Frank's heart is in his mouth, every last part of him willing Gerard onwards. Finally, Gerard lays the Grimoire down at his feet, straightens back up and spreads his arms wide, that unnatural wind tugging at his clothes and his hair. In a ringing voice, he speaks a final word: "Go."

 

The line of the circle finally breaks and there's a roaring in Frank's ears and the inspector freezes. Frank hardly dares to breathe. And then the inspector's head lolls backwards, his limbs twitching and jerking, and then a cloud of sickly yellow vapour pours from his mouth and dissipates into the air. There's a long, suspended moment where no one says a word, and then the inspector's body crumples and hits the floor with a heavy thud.

 

"You--you did it," Frank breathes, staring at Gerard with his eyes as wide as saucers.

 

"Yeah," Gerard says, his own eyes fixed on the inspector's inert body as if even he can't quite believe it. "I didn't think I could. I didn't actually think it was going to work."

 

"But it did," Mikey says, who looks more than a little bit shellshocked.

 

"It did," says Gerard weakly, turning to face Frank and Mikey, a weak grin unfolding on his face.

 

It's as if the spell has broken. Frank and Mikey both lunge for Gerard, laughing, and Frank finds himself sandwiched in the middle of a group hug, all shaking hands and wildly beating hearts. Frank's knees feel like jell-O and his legs give out, and the three of them go sprawling across the floor in the remnants of the salt circle. Mikey's boney elbow is digging into his back and Gerard's legs are all tangled up with Frank's and there's salt in his hair and his heart is kicking in his chest, and he can't stop laughing.

 

 

*

 

 

When the inspector comes round, a fond but exasperated Mrs. Way is making him tea, and Frank is almost sure he sees her add a dash of something green from a dusty glass bottle when he isn't looking. She winks at Frank, and he grins.

 

"Drink up," Mrs. Way says solicitously, pushing the teacup across to the puzzled-looking inspector. "You poor man, you just collapsed."

 

"Did I?" says the inspector weakly. Frank, Gerard and Mikey all nod silently. The inspector shakes his head as if trying to dislodge a spider from his hair, and drinks some of his tea. His face clears slightly.

 

"Been working too hard," he grumbles, and Mikey nods solemnly.

 

"You should take a little vacation," Mrs. Way says sweetly.

 

"Did you know job stress increases your risk of heart disease?" says Mikey earnestly, and Frank nearly chokes on his frog-shaped cookie. The best thing of all is that Mikey really does think he's being helpful.

 

"Um," says the inspector, looking thoroughly unsettled - which, to be fair, is most people's reaction to Mikey. "No, I... I didn't know that," he says, and drinks some more of his tea. He stares into the fire crackling like Pop Rocks in the imposing fireplace, a slight frown on his face, as if he's straining to remember something. "Maybe I should take a few weeks off, go somewhere sunny."

 

"What a good idea," says Mrs. Way firmly, and as he looks at her, Frank sees his eyes slide out of focus. "A nice vacation. And I'm sure you'll be turning in a favourable report about this house, won't you?"

 

"I don't..."

 

"This very safe house," Gerard chimes in, leaning conspiratorially across the table towards the inspector. "You were saying how safe it looked just before you passed out."

 

"I... I was?"

 

"You were," says Mrs. Way, with such ironclad conviction that even Frank almost believes her for a moment.

 

"I was," agrees the inspector, his face clearing. "Yes, I think I remember now."

 

"You hit your head when you fell," Gerard says helpfully. "You might have a, uh..." he looks at Frank and waves his hand in the general area of his head.

 

"Percussion?" Frank tries.

 

"Concussion," Gerard says. His eyes are wide with faux-concern, and he's even chewing anxiously on his lip. All things considered, it's a damn good performance. "Maybe you should go to the emergency room first."

 

Frank hides a grin at that. He knows Gerard would poison his own brother--well, maybe he wouldn't go quite that far, but he'd poison _somebody's_ brother for a ride in an ambulance.

 

The inspector reaches up dazedly to prod the egg-sized lump where the back of his head hit the library's floorboards. "No, no," he says. "Maybe I'll just... take the rest of the day off."

 

Once he's finished his tea, Mrs. Way walks the inspector back to his car and sends him on his way. By the time she returns to the kitchen, Gerard and Mikey have adopted matching expressions of sheepishness, and Frank is wondering whether it wouldn't have been wiser to make his excuses and leave while he could. He knows Mrs. Way isn't exactly a regular mom, there's a certain look that mothers everywhere get when someone is about to get it, big time.

 

"What am I going to do with you two, hmm?" sighs Mrs. Way, taking a seat at the table and pouring herself a large measure of something tawny and heady-smelling from a small flask.

 

"We're sorry," mumbles Mikey, shamefaced, staring intently at the tabletop.

 

"It was my fault," Gerard says, his cheeks rather pink. "I didn't _mean_ to do it, I only wanted to scare him a bit. I messed up the incantation."

 

Mrs. Way looks disappointed. "Sweetheart, I thought I'd taught you better than that," she says.

 

"I know," Gerard mutters. "I mean--you _did_ , I just... skipped a line and it all went..." he makes another vague hand gesture that Frank takes to mean "horribly, horribly wrong".

 

"Frank was really good, though," Mikey says, apparently keen to change the subject. "He went all the way up the front stairs without getting sucked in. He didn't get scared or anything."

 

Mrs. Way looks positively proud, and Frank decides not to point out that he'd never been more frightened in his life. "Of course he didn't," she says, downing a large mouthful of her drink. "Frank is a very brave boy." She smiles at him, and it feels a little bit like coming home.

 

 

*

 

 

"Nice day?" Frank's mom asks him absentmindedly when he gets home, planting a kiss on his forehead and returning her attention to the pot of tomato sauce on the burner.

 

Frank hesitates for a split second. "Yeah," he says, with a small, secret smile. "Yeah, it was nice."

 

 

*

 

 

Frank wakes with a start to the sound of something tapping against his window. It's probably just the yew tree outside, sometimes the wind catches the branches and knocks them against the glass. He rolls over and closes his eyes again.

 

Tap, tap, tap.

 

Frank ignores it. It isn't the first time this has happened, and he absolutely refuses to get his hopes up for bats or skeletons (again) when it's just some old tree.

 

Tap, tap, tap, tap. This time, the knocking sounds distinctly aggrieved.

 

"Fine," Frank mumbles, rolling out of bed and padding over to the window. He pulls the drapes aside, and sees--Gerard. Gerard, perched on his windowsill as if this is the most normal thing in the world. "What are you _doing_ here?" Frank breathes. He pinches himself, hard, just to make sure he's not having some bizarre dream.

 

Gerard looks at him blankly.

 

"What are you doing here?" Frank says again, a little louder, glancing over his shoulder at his bedroom door. If his mom wakes up, he is so dead.

 

Gerard rolls his eyes and gestures to his mouth and then his ears. He points to Frank, then at the latch on the window. Frank fumbles hastily with the latch and heaves the window open, then grabs Gerard's hands and pulls him inside. He stumbles backwards and Gerard sort of falls on him, but he's grinning.

 

"Hi," Frank says, a little breathlessly, kneeling on the threadbare rug in the middle of the room. "What are you doing here?"

 

"I, uh. I couldn't sleep," Gerard whispers. He looks almost embarrassed. "I'm sorry I woke you up."

 

Frank doesn't say anything for a moment. Gerard got out of bed, wrapped himself up in his coat and scarf and gloves, snuck out and walked all the way to Frank's house - all because he couldn't sleep. "What about Mikey?"

 

"He was levitating in his sleep again," Gerard whispers back, the definite suggestion of a pout on his face. "He fell and hit his head last time I woke him up while I was doing that."

 

Frank knows better than to question this, so instead he just nods wisely.

 

"You wanna go for a walk?" Gerard says. He smells like woodsmoke and his eyes are bright, leaning close to Frank in the dark room. "I want to show you something."

 

If it had been anyone else, Frank would have wrinkled his nose and told them that _going for a walk_ was a pretty lame thing to do in the middle of the night, but it's Gerard, so he grins and gets to his feet. He tracks down two socks that nearly match, his most comfortable, most worn-out sneakers, a sweater, his jacket, one mitten and a scarf and sits down on his bed to pull them on over his pajamas.

 

"You ready?" Gerard says, once Frank is fully dressed.

 

"Yup," says Frank, happily. "How do we get out?"

 

"We climb." Gerard says it like it's obvious. In his mind, it probably is. "Look, I climbed up, it's really easy. I'll go first." He pushes the window open again and clambers through while Frank watches, biting his lip. It really does look like a long way down. Gerard lowers himself down, reaches across and grabs one of the yew tree's branches, then shimmies down with surprising ease. He drops lightly onto the grass, then looks up at Frank and holds out his arms and bows as if to say _ta-da!_

 

Frank stifles a giggle.

 

Encouraged by Gerard's example, he hops up onto the window sill and scrambles out into the cold night. He glances down at the grass below and his heart sinks; it still looks like a very long drop. He tries to scoot along the ledge but he wobbles, almost drops, and a scream catches in his throat. "Gerard?" he croaks. "I think--"

 

"I've got you," Gerard stage-whispers. Frank manages to look down again and sees Gerard standing underneath him, his arms outstretched. "C'mon, you can do it."

 

Gerard wouldn't say it if it wasn't true.

 

Frank lets himself fall. For a moment, he's suspended in the crisp, cold night air, the world rushing up to meet him, then he's in Gerard's arms, and then both of them go sprawling in the damp grass and leaf muck. Frank rolls himself off Gerard, gasping for air and shaking with silent laughter, and just lies there for a minute, looking up at the cloudy, velvety sky. He feels dizzy and lightheaded, like his blood is cherry soda and his veins are strings of Christmas lights.

 

"Sorry," Gerard wheezes, his whole body convulsing with fits of breathless giggles. "I didn't mean to drop you."

 

"S'okay," Frank gasps, wiping tears from his face and getting unsteadily to his feet.

 

Frank gets up and conscientiously wipes his dirty hands on the seat of his pajama pants before grabbing Gerard's hands and pulling him to his feet.

 

"Where are we going?" Frank asks, hurrying to keep up as Gerard sets off up the dark street. It isn't Frank's fault, Gerard has longer legs.

 

"You'll see," Gerard says, with a mysterious little smile.

 

He leads Frank up the hill, towards the old church. The moon is high but several of the streetlights are out, so the shadows lie thick and dark on the sidewalk.

 

"Ow," grumbles Frank, as he trips over the curb.

 

"You okay?" Gerard says, looking back over his shoulder.

 

"Fine," Frank says, hopping on one foot. His toes hurt.

 

Gerard snorts. "C'mon," he says. "Gimme your hand."

 

Grinning, Frank slips his hand into Gerard's, and they make their way on up the street. Frank is half expecting Gerard to head up the winding lane that leads to his house, but he keeps going. It's cold enough for Frank's breath to rise in front of him in ghostly-pale curls of steam, but he categorically does not pretend to be a dragon. Okay, maybe he does a little bit. But he's very subtle about it.

 

"This way," Gerard murmurs. Still not letting go of Frank's hand, he takes them down a short alleyway that opens out onto a scrubby patch of green, and beyond that--

 

"The graveyard," Frank breathes, his eyes as round as coins. "Oh, man. Oh, _man_."

 

Gerard grins at him. "Yup," he says. "Come on."

 

The two of them almost run across the grass, still hand in hand, and when they reach the warped, rusting wrought-iron fence, Gerard levers the gate open with practiced ease. Frank trots along happily in his wake, positively glowing with delight. It's deliciously spooky, the headstones casting strange shadows and the foreboding silhouette of the old church looming blackly over them. This is the best day ever.

 

"Over here," whispers Gerard, picking his way over to a particularly imposing stone and sitting himself down in front of it. "This is the best place to watch from."

 

Frank follows him obediently, mindful of stray tree roots and, like, skeletal hands and stuff. He suppresses a shiver. This is so, so awesome. He drops down next to Gerard, and realises that the headstone actually shelters them from the cold breeze pretty nicely.

 

"Watch what?" he asks. From up here, they can see the whole town spread out below them like a map. He really, really hopes the answer is zombies. Or ghosts, that would be cool too. He's not fussy.

 

"It's not dead people or anything cool like that," Gerard says quickly, as if he can hear Frank's thoughts. It's hard to see in the dark, but he looks like he's biting his lip worriedly.

 

"Oh," says Frank. "That's cool, I don't mind." He means it, too. He's in the middle of a creepy graveyard at night, and he's with _Gerard_. Not that it wouldn't be cool if something freaky happened, but as far as Frank is concerned, this is already pretty great.

 

"Just look over there," Gerard says, pointing towards the far side of town, where all the rich people's big houses are. "It should start soon."

 

"'Kay," Frank says. He stares intently for several seconds, but nothing happens. He never was good at waiting, and it really is cold. He scoots closer to Gerard, so that they're huddled together. That's much better. He lets out a small, contented sigh. Even if there's nothing to see, he'd be happy just to stay here until morning.

 

And then a sparkling rocket soars up from somewhere in the darkness below, higher and higher and higher, then it explodes with a bang and a shower of incandescent golden light. It's followed by two more, one electric blue and one mint green, lighting up the inky sky with brilliant neon colour.

 

Frank looks up at Gerard, wide-eyed. "Is this what we came to see?" he asks.

 

"Yeah," Gerard says, grinning. "The people who live in that big house with the statue of the lion outside, they have fireworks every year."

 

"I love fireworks," Frank says earnestly, snuggling closer to Gerard and gazing out at the beautiful riot of colour and noise. When he closes his eyes, he sees flashing afterimages of blazing light.

 

"Right? Mikey thinks they're boring."

 

"What? They _explode_. How is that boring?"

 

"I _know_." Gerard's eyes are huge and so dark Frank could fall into them, the moonlight silvering his cheekbones and his smile brighter than the stars. "I brought candy apples," he says. "You want one?"

 

Just when Frank didn't think things couldn't get any better. "Yes, please," he says happily. Gerard pulls two out of his satchel, stuffs a dislodged notebook, several pencils and what looks like a petrified bone back in, and hands one of the candy apples to Frank. Beaming, Frank takes it and peels the cellophane away from the apple's glistening red shell. He opens his mouth as wide as he can and sinks his teeth in, and lets out a little moan of purest satisfaction as he feels the crisp, sweet candy crackle and tastes the sharpness of the apple underneath. It's perfect.

 

"What?" he says thickly, wiping apple juice and sticky sugar from his chin with the back of his hand. Gerard is watching him, grinning.

 

"Nothing," says Gerard, looking away and taking a bite of his own candy apple. He's still smiling. Frank wants him to smile like that all the time. They eat their apples in easy, happy silence--or, well, Gerard does; Frank makes a lot of very undignified slurping noises and smears ruby red sugar all over his face. Frank's fingers are sticky and he licks his sugar-coated lips as he nestles against Gerard's side. Gerard leans into him, wrapping an arm around Frank's shoulders and pulling him in closer, the two of them huddling together against the cold night air. Frank inhales deeply, and when he looks up, he can see the lights above them reflected in Gerard's eyes. Gerard is warm, and he smells like fireworks and apples and stolen Hershey's kisses, and there's a strange, bittersweet moment where Frank wants to... wants _something_ , but he doesn't know what. He wants things to be like this forever, time unspooling around them while they remain just the way they are right now, full of secrets and Halloween candy, the cold night filling their lungs and the graveyard grass tickling their skin.

 

Frank waits for a firework that looks like a shooting star, squeezes his eyes so tightly shut that he sees stars--and makes a wish.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Séance Weather](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4020481) by [dapatty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dapatty/pseuds/dapatty)




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